Resonators are traditionally employed as components, in among other things, filters and oscillators. Resonators have gained greater importance lately with the growth of the mobile communications technology and the increasing clock speed of computers. Mobile devices require small precision filters, and computer clocks require oscillators capable of error-free high frequency oscillation. Typical resonator applications require resonators to demonstrate Q values higher than one thousand at an impedance load of approximately 50Ω, be compatible with common voltage ranges of typical integrated circuits, and to resonate at frequencies near or above 1 GHz.
Conventional resonators include, for example, surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonators, fundamental mode thin film resonators (TFRs), flexural mode MEMS beam resonators, guided electromagnetic wave structures, lumped element inductors and capacitors, thin film bulk acoustic resonators (TFBARs), overmoded bulk crystals, and solidly mounted resonators (SMRs). These filters suffer from a variety of shortcomings, for example many are too large for placement onto an integrated circuit, operate in an unsatisfactorily small frequency range, require too high a voltage for operation, and/or cannot achieve a sufficiently high Quality (Q) level with a 50Ω load. Q is a measure of the energy efficiency of a filter and also is a measure of the sharpness of the filter's frequency response, i.e., a high Q filter passes a narrower band of frequencies than a lower Q filter.
Many traditional resonators are too large to incorporate one or more resonators onto an integrated circuit. For example, thin-film resonators (TFRs) commonly have a footprint on the order of hundreds of microns. Surface acoustic wave (SAW) resonators are typically even larger, in some cases requiring substrates as large several centimeters or inches to exhibit desirable performance characteristics.
Several traditional resonators operate in an undesirably limited frequency range. MEMS flexural mode beam resonators typically do not operate satisfactorily in the Ultra-High Frequency range. Similarly, TFBARs and SMRs are difficult to make with center frequencies much below 1 GHz since film stress becomes an issue as the film thickness is increased. Furthermore, with most film based resonators, multiple resonators with differing frequencies cannot be placed on a single integrated circuit because the film thickness is typically uniform across a substrate.
Many MEMS flexural mode beam resonators also suffer from requiring activation voltages that make the resonators difficult to integrate in standard integrated circuits. MEMS flexural mode beam resonators are commonly actuated capacitively, in some cases requiring as much a 50V to achieve resonance.
Many conventional resonators do not exhibit high enough Q levels with a 50Ω load. Typical lumped element inductors, SMRs, and many TFBARs fail to meet the desired Q level of 1000 in response to operating with a 50Ω load. MEMS flexural mode beam resonators can operate with higher Q levels, but usually require operation in a vacuum to do so.